


I still believe in summertime

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cassian Andor-centric, Chocolate Box Exchange 2019, Cold Weather, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Hoth, One Shot, Romance, Teamwork, small amount of suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-10-28 22:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17796062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: Out in the cold on Hoth, Cassian contacts Jyn to ask her what she thinks their future will be like, giving him the hope he needs to keep moving forward





	I still believe in summertime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rodo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodo/gifts).



Cassian is no stranger to cold. After all, he grew up on Fest, a snowy world forgotten by most, until the Clone Wars, where so many forgotten things were brought to light, and so many things once known became forgotten again. Fest itself, at least the way he remembers it, with brightly colored houses, with bonfires and hearth-fires and candle-lights in every window, with light and hope and all good things, is gone. Every good thing, every bit of light, he’d had there is gone, buried beneath ash and then, snow, the white flakes falling over the smoldering grey ash, until the world once again became cold and white and still.

Now, as he fights to take a step, and then another, each one a battle, each movement forward a victory on a planet so far from and yet so close in many ways to Fest, Cassian thinks even he might soon lay beneath a snowbank.

Because Hoth is bitterly cold, colder than even Fest had been. Cold enough that he’d defied orders to go in search of Luke Skywalker. Defied orders because… well… he’d gotten slightly in the habit of doing such a thing, since Scarif. Defied orders because the Rebellion couldn’t afford to lose their hero, their favorite smuggler, and their hope, all in one night. Because Cassian had seen the tears in the corners of Commander Organa’s eyes when she gave the order. He knew all too well what a determined set of the chin, a clenched jaw, could mask to most people. Leia was terrified of losing Luke and desperate not to lose Han too.

If Leia lost those two, how could she lead the Rebellion with any sort of hope in her eyes? Hadn’t she lost enough already?

So, Cassian, as he was far more prepared for the cold than most others, headed out in search of both of them.

And then things had gone terribly wrong.

He’d lost their trail, lost his way. Lost… lost everything but his own hope. He’s going to get through this. He has to. A footstep at a time.

 _The snow cannot cover what keeps moving, Casi._ His father had said to him, a lifetime ago. He’s taken it to heart. Kept moving, always moving, always fighting for a future where snow will never mix with ash, where the icy cold will be an excuse for families to stay bundled up inside, not for a rogue soldier to go hunting after two more.

His comm crackles to life. “Cassian!” It’s Commander Organa. “Han and Luke have been found. Return to base immediately.”

Immediately. Right. That would be…. Easy. If he knew where to go.

 _The coldest wind blows, not from the north, but from fear_. His father had also said, quoting an old poem.

He can’t be afraid. He mutters an agreement to his commanding officer, and then, comms someone else. Someone who has become his hope, in a way he’d never known a person could be. He’d always thought of hope like snowflakes. Each one so fragile, melting away at the faintest touch, but accumulating into something powerful.

But Jyn? She offered hope more like the hearth he barely remembers. The place where he’d set out damp mittens and hold his palms up to its flickering flame, seeking its unpredictable, wonderful, dangerous warmth. “Jyn?” he asks, twice, before the comm beeps with an answer.

“Hey, idiot.”

“Warm welcome,” he mumbles back. There’s ice on even his eyebrows now. Warm is little more than a dream.

“She is calling you an idiot because she is concerned for your wellbeing. She cried.”

“Did not!”

“My sensors detected extra moisture on your face, which, for all humanoids, is described as crying.”

Despite the situation, he can’t help but smile, underneath his scarf. “I see you found her, yeah, Kaytu?”

“I did.”

“And kept her safe?” he means, kept her away from doing anything stupid.

“Jyn Erso’s chance of being harmed is no higher than it was when you left base, Cassian. Will that do as a measure of safety?”

“Sure.” Every word from them gives him a little more energy, a reminder of what he’s fighting to reach. What he has to get back to. His _home._ “Okay, you two. Tell me. Tell me… things.”

“Things?” They ask in perfect harmony. He wonders if they’ll ever realize how similar they are, the two beings that matter so much to him. Both of them stubborn, both of them brilliant, both of them absolutely sure that their plan to keep Cassian safe is going to be the best one.

Which is why he’d told neither of them he’d headed out into the cold. “Yeah. Tell me… tell me what our life is going to be like. After the war.”

There’s a crackle of static and he winces. Can’t bear to lose the connection, not yet. “You’re inside, right, Jyn?”

“Yeah, of course.” But now, she hesitates. “You… you’re not alright, are you?” Jyn asks. He can picture her, the way her eyes narrow when she’s concerned, or caught him in a lie, or both. The way she’d get so close to him, closer than most people dared to get to an assassin and a spy, just so she can glare with even more intensity. “Cassian. Tell me.”

“I’m fine. I’ll send over my vitals.” A lie and a truth. The lie for Jyn, who probably doesn’t believe it, though he hopes she will. Hopes she won’t worry about him. That she’ll forget him the way people on planets with seasons forget about winter in the middle of summer. He wants her to be happy, to live the rest of her life in sunlight, away from all the cold shadows she’s haunted for so long.

She’d call him a sap and punch his shoulder if he ever said that to her.

And the truth? Well, that’s for Kay, who even now would be reviewing Cassian’s vitals, who knows he doesn’t mean a bit of that single word _fine_ , because he’s not fine, not at all. But he’s been not-fine many times around Kay, and they’ve always survived… somehow. Survived because of information provided. Survived thanks to data and luck and each other. He doesn’t want Kay to be left without data, not now, not when things seem at their most dangerous.

So Cassian gives Kay all his vital signs, lets him see all the warning indicators, all the marks of the fragile organic being Cassian is. Because he knows that Kay has been accepting Cassian’s own mortality for as long as they’ve been friends. Monitoring him. Trying to keep him healthy. Cassian thinks, in that moment, with the wind so cold, so loud, louder than it ever was back home, that he should have told Kay thank you. For all the times a droid had to remind a human that he was alive. That he had needs to be met and a life to be lived.

Kay would just say something incredibly droll and amusing if Cassian told him that.

There. He thinks. It’s good that the comm went silent. That he can’t tell them how much they mean to him, that he can’t say anything that might make things awkward.

“Okay, Cass,” It’s Jyn. He smiles. Remembers how she started calling him that after they kissed, as if a nickname can only be unlocked with a declaration of affection. Physical, in that case, but they’d had more than enough time to show their affection in other ways too, in all the soft small things that let them build a relationship in the middle of a war. “You want a story about the future.”

“Yeah.”

“Exactly what year are we extrapolating the data to?” Kay asks.

“Let’s say… twenty years from now.”

“You’ll be _old_.” Jyn drawls.

“I might even have grey hair,” he teases back. His father had grey hair, he remembers. Remembers a man with a deep voice and a warm smile sitting in a hair by the hearth, reading to Cassian. No. He needs to… think of something ahead of him. Something. “But you’ll still be beautiful. Strong. Smart.” It’s those later two words that mean the most to him, but he knows that sometimes, even Jyn needs to hear that she’s beautiful. And of course she is, not despite her scars and battle wounds, not because of them, but simply because she is. She is Jyn, and that is enough for him. “Maybe you’ll dye your hair, like you’re always talking about it. To hide your own grey hair.” He teases. This. This is good. If the snow is going to cover him, he’ll at least be moving forward in his dreams.

“Okay, ten years from now. How bout that?” Jyn begins. “We’ll get a ship. A good one.”

“What make and model?” Kay asks.

“You pick, Kay-ton.”

“I never asked for a nickname.”

“Yeah well you got one when I had to drag you across that field. You weigh a ton.”

“I weigh 200kg.”

“The future?” Cassian finally asks. There’s something bright in the distance, and as much as he wishes it was dawn, he knows it’s more likely to be his own twilight. But he still clings to hope.

“Yeah. So. A big ship. Us. A charging port, an oil bath for Kay. A big bed for us. A fancy one, with those curtain things.” Jyn, he’s found out, has a soft spot for fancy things, especially if they’re related to napping or other horizontal activities.

“I would appreciate that privacy, it is true.” Kay adds.

“So, us, our ship, and freedom,” Jyn says the word the way he says hope. “We can go anywhere. Do anything. Maybe visit some places we always talked about. I’ll watch cheesy romantic holos. You can have time to read those poetry books you haul around every time we move bases.”

“Maybe I’ll even read them to you.” He hasn’t yet told Jyn that it’s his father’s poetry. He hopes she opens them and learns that, someday soon.

“Maybe.”

“I would also like to hear them.”

“And maybe,” Jyn hesitates again. She seems… more reserved than usual. Like she’s focusing on something else. “Maybe we’ll have an adopted kiddo or two or whatever by then.”

“Or whatever?”

“You know? Droid family? Wookie cubs? Whoever needs us to look after us, that’s what I meant.”

It’s more than he could have ever hoped for, and everything he didn’t know how to ask about. Again he thinks of the hearth, and this time, he remembers his whole family gathered around it, all of them warm, happy, bright, together.

“Alright, you two. There’s our plan. Five years from now, us on a ship. A big plate of empanadas and papas rellenas in front of us,” sure the other two might not have considered food in their dream future, but he’s including that, damn it. He knows Jyn will like them. She’ll eat anything, even stuff he wouldn’t dream of trying, which really, is one of her most beautiful traits. “And I’ll read you some poems.”

“Have any memorized?”

Jyn’s voice sounds closer. He swallows. Tries to remember. “There’s one… about... the… about love being a green shoot underneath the snow.” He falls to his knees, his legs giving out, but he keeps going, intent on his dream. His hope. He can see it so clearly, see the happiness just out of reach. He focuses on that, and not how cold it is. “About how we do not forget summer in our hearts.”

The snow whirls. It’s loud. It’s too loud. It’s like… a motor.

“That’s a good one.” Jyn’s voice says. “But I bet it sounds better when you’re warm.”

Because it’s not just Jyn’s voice. It’s her, standing in front of him in the snow. And Kay, right beside her. The two help him up, cart him into a snow speeder. They’d found him, rescued him. And he knows its real, because no dream could conjure up the oddness of those two copiloting a ship on a rescue mission. And no dream would show that Jyn had stolen his gloves. Again. “You told me you were inside” he mumbles

“I lied,” Jyn smiles at him and that smile alone is enough to build a wonderful future on. “Kay was telling the truth.”

“She wasn’t in danger,” Kay adds, squeezing Cassian’s shoulder, before wrapping blankets around him tightly. “Just you.”

“Just me,” he agrees.

Jyn shakes her head, leans over, kisses him, softly, and though he wishes he could kiss back deeper, could pull her to him, the blankets keep him immobile. Then, Jyn presses a few buttons on the snowspeeder, and even in his blurred vision, he can see how she hacked it to make it be able to take off in the cold night air. She came for him. She came for that future that they’ve finally admitted they both want. He’s safe and Jyn’s here and neither of them are going to let go of each other again. Because they have a plan. Something to hope for beyond the end of the war.

“Let’s get home,” Cassian whispers. “I think I have poetry to practice reading.”

“Yeah, and you better teach me how to make empandas, too,” Jyn replies, leaning over to kiss his cheek, as if ensuring he’s real, he’s safe, he’s by her side. “I want to learn.”

“Guess we’ll both have things to practice.” Things to build up a life, after the war that is all he’s ever known is over. Things to share with each other, and maybe even with a family of their own some day.

And as the speeder soars back toward base, all Cassian can think about is the tiny green shoot, lying underneath snow and ash, waiting for the warmth of love to bloom. He remembers, then, the last line of the poem is part of the advice his father told him so many times. 

_Snow cannot cover forever what we love, for even the coldest ice burns at the warmest touch._

**Author's Note:**

> This was a treat fic for chocolatebox! Rodo, I hope you enjoy, and sorry the treat appeared a little after deadline!
> 
> Comments from everyone are very welcome!


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